This is a great thread and I love hearing all the parent answers (moms and dads)!
I've got a great career that I enjoy and that challenges me intellectually and socially. I am currently studying for an important certification exam and it's more memorization than I've done since high school! I can feel my brain stretching.
I also read a lot, both fiction and non, and DD and I have an occasional book club (we'll read the same book and then discuss). Last time it was her turn to pick (A Mysterious Benedict Society book -- easy read, but a lot there to dig into) and next up I get to choose (Watership Down). I have a BA in English, so these conversations let me sneak in various literary analysis techniques and schools of critical theory.
Before I had DD I wrote a book of my own and found it a publisher. It was nonfiction and not a huge bestseller, but it was a great experience.
And I have a list of hobbies that use my hands and exercise my more feminine side: knitting, spinning, baking, making soap, and so on.
